Jacques Bertin - When are we going to receive reinforcements?

Original Title: "Quand recevrons-nous des renforts?"
Year: 2002

When are we going to receive reinforcements, my soul?
Remind yourself of the sound of the fifes, suddenly so beautiful
When the column emerged from the big shadow of the big trees
The men hugged each other like crazy and threw their hats

Do you believe that the reinforcements will come? You remember the ambush
Where we lost people and saved our flags
A messenger would have passed on a note through the fence
The night of the life is so long and tough to the soul, the coat

Coat of rains grey and heavy and dirty as well, coat of sorrows
Are we going to finally receive a sign through the lines, over there?
A signal, a tiny light from the infinite where love leads
Is there some water remaining, my soul, for the thirst? Don't weaken!

The reinforcements won't come and we were so lonely in the world
That night when suddenly the sound of the fifes and the drums
As we were going to fall back, made the sky vibrate like a wave
You will remember this, my soul, and will hold until daylight

Jacques Bertin - Aragon - Les Ponts-de-Cé

Les Ponts-de-Cé is the name of a french village, it could be translated to "The bridges of Cé"
Text: Louis Aragon (1942)
Year: 1967

I went through Les Ponts-de-Cé
It's there that everything began

A song of the time gone by
Talks about a wounded knight
About a rose on the roadway
About an unlaced blouse
About a castle of an insane duke
And about swans in the ditches
About the meadows where comes dancing
An eternal bride

And I drank like a frozen milk
the long lai of distorted glories

The Loire takes away my thoughts
Like the overturned cars
And the defused weapons
And the tears badly wiped out
Oh my France! Oh my neglected!
I went through Les Ponts-de-Cé

All poems written by Louis Aragon

Jacques Bertin - Three bouquets

Original Title: "Trois bouquets"

Year: 1974

Three bouquets of flowers
Near the bed
Among the books

The peace that settles here
Because of you
The first bouquet for the child we won't make
The second for the song of men
From which we are separated
The third because you love me: carnations

Three bouquets of flowers
Near the bed
Among the books

One day we will stop fleeing
O my child
One day, we will meet again
I will tell you:
You grew old

On a sad bank
In the silt, you are beautiful
And chilled to the bone

Companions cover our love with your human voices
Coat of revolts
Coat of wool
The one I love is cold

Lise Médini - It's not worth it

Original Title: "Ce n'est pas la peine"

Year: 1967

I'd like love where we love one another
Blended like mountains and plains
I'd like a love united
Like joy with sorrow
The horizon with the infinite

But you say:
It's not worth it
It's not worth it
It's not worth it

But you say:
Every deaths come
It's not worth it
It's not worth it

I'd like a victorious love
Like the river is to the sea
I'd like your heart to my heart
Like a child is to his mother
The blue bird with happiness

But you say:
It's only wild dreams
It's only wild dreams
It's only wild dreams

But you say:
Life is bitter
It's only wild dreams
It's only wild dreams

I'd like for an old man's dream
To be alike to the dreams of children
Slow desire of a blue spring
Toward a triumphant beyond
I'd like love out of time

But you say:
All flowers wither
All flowers wither
All flowers wither

But you say:
On a pavane
All flowers wither
All flowers wither

However if you said yes
The seven days would become sunday
The sun would put at midnight
Shivers on every branches
When the cheek leans over the cheek

But you say:
Every deaths come
It's not worth it
It's not worth it

But you say:
Life is bitter
It's only wild dreams
It's only wild dreams

But you say:
On a pavane
All flowers wither
All flowers wither

But you say:
It's not worth it
It's not worth it
It's not worth it

La Tordue - I.N.R.I.

Year: 1995

't is because of you all that
't is because of you
All those who go to you
don't come back

Talkin' about you dude
Talkin' about you
Don't duck out like that
Don't duck out

Here there are no false start
No false start
Three days later and is coming back
and is coming back

We only die once, our lot
We only die once
No great act pal
No great act

We are just falling asleep
We say nothing no more
It's those around
who are sad

We are asleep stupidly
In a stone bed
No relations oh no
At mister Peter's

We go down without service
toward those who already
We are not all sons
to your dad

Stay on your cross I'm telling you
Stay on your cross
The holy spirit here
It won't work

What is better in the other world
I ask you just like that
And even would we go up
Better live well down here

If by ill luck
I arrive at your place
If by ill luck
If by mistake
I find myself in the blue
By mistake if
Then I beg you
Damn good lord
Once
is not an habit
If by mistake
I take the wrong digs
If by ill luck
I end up at your place
Then I beg you
One last time

Send me to hell

Live version:

Jacques Bertin - The songs of the time gone by

Original Title: "Les Chansons du Temps Passé"
Year: 1967

Along the bank, a girl to marry
was going away with her hair streaming in the wind
Pass four riders
The lively, the beauty, your hair are tangled
It's because my lover abandonned me

Pass four boatmen
The younger is light of step
And the princess astonished
was awoken with a kiss

Three wandering entertainers go singing
The songs of the time gone by
Who will give them wine
But the roses are withered

They came down to the garden
The magpie told them "Good morning"
There was no more grapes
They picked up rosemary

On the road to Argentré
Proud she was going to the market
There was a roadmender
He stole a kiss from her

It's my friend Pierre
He is going to be hung in his prison
For having hunted a roe deer
On the baron's lands

To the bal are going the engaged couples
Destined for a long time
But the king's son passed
The girl was light-hearted

To Piedmont I'm going to war
For the cruel forgotten
But the horses have trampled
The memories of my valley

The beauty dropped
her silver ring in the water
Who will be able to find it
will get a kiss

Behind home there is a pound
Three beautiful ducks are there swimming
I hear the wind sing
I get married in spring

We will have many children
And in the evening during the gathering
For the words of the present time
We will sing the verb "to love"

Jacques Bertin - Your prison

Original Title: "Ta prison"
Year: 1980

Your prison is a garden where joy
imprints itself like steps in the sand
Happiness is in the hedges of the soul
And my love is your prison

I love you the way I want you
My gaze is your prison
You are very high in the sun
Ideal, you climb toward perfection

And you smile to the tears
My gaze is your mirror
Your pride is your prison

I love you that way and then you die
Let's hold hands as together
we go up into the same sun
And in your hand,
You hold the key of your prison

Despair is a garden where joy
imprints itself like a duty in the sand
Let's love one another this way as together
we are building our house.

Jacques Brel - When all you have is love

Original Title: "Quand on a que l'amour"

Year: 1956

When all one have is love
to offer as sharing
at the day of the great journey
that is our big love

When all you have is love
My love you and me
To burst with joy
Every hour and every day

When all you have is love
To live our promisses
With no other wealth
Than to always believe in it

When all you have is love
To furnish with marvels
And cover with sun
The ugliness of the suburbs

When all you have is love
as only reason
as only song
And as only help

When all you have is love
To dress at daybreak
Poors and brigands
With velvet coats

When all you have is love
To offer as prayer
For the evils of the earth
As a simple troubadour

When all you have is love
To offer to those
whose sole battle
Is to look for the day

When all you have is love
To trace a path
And force destiny
At every crossroad

When all you have is love
To talk to the canons
And convince a drum
Then without having anything
else but the strength to love
We will have in ours hands,
Friends, the whole world

Studio version:

Jacques Bertin - The goodness of the weak ones

Original Title: "La Bonté des Faibles"
Year: 1993

I would like to be good of the goodness of the weak ones
Of the goodness of the blue small boats,
The unmade beds,
The sheds at the far end of the parks,
The gazebos

To collapse,
To be good and weak completely
Of the goodness of the old cheaters whose heart weakens
Who know they have everything to lose and to win

Nothing
except that maybe this way someone finally recognizes
In the eyes of the defeated man
The child of the fairies

I would like to be good of the goodness of the letters
Found in the late warmth of the attics
My dear parents. My dear child
Where could he be?

Forgive me would you,
Yesterday I have cried a lot
The man on the yellowed photos I would like to be
Where formerly loved women would regret
To have hurt me and I would forgive
Ingenuously so I would be loved
And through the window

I would hear that the noise of the streets kneels
To make a carpet for everything that has to be born again
And the formerly loved women would approach
I would hear for their steps on the gravel to stop
Waiting for my forgiveness and that would save
The world, that shiver, that moment on the ridge
At the brink of the abyss
I want to be good and ugly

And the wrong that has been done to me
from the goodness of the weaks
To love so that everything comes back to life
Everything comes back to life

Dominique A - Toward the blue

Original Title: "Vers le bleu"
Year: 2012

A shadow was passing on the wall
At the bottom of which you were waiting for me
The hand laid on the wounds that anyone had done to you

The former evening when I left you
You were gone to get involved
In insane plans that I prefer not to know about

I carried you to our home
Thankfully mommy didn't see anything
I disinfected your knee
And I put you to bed, stark naked

I watched over you the whole day
I told mommy that we had to let you sleep
You were moaning and it was like a love song

But how am I going to do to
cure you of the taste of fire?
But how am I going to do to
bring you back toward the blue?

The next day you promised me
That you will never do it again
Like two days earlier I smiled
And I said I believed you

And the evening come I felt you
burning to tell to the street
The few words it was expecting

But how am I going to do to
cure you of the taste of fire?
But how am I going to do to
bring you back toward the blue?

To bring you back toward the islands
Of childhood and archs suspended
Toward both of us gliding all slender
On our lives like on an embankment

When our thoughts only made one
The sun was the ennemy
We didn't know the night
We had never seen the moon

I'm going to look for you this morning
Like for so many mornings to come
I'm sure you are not far and
And that you wait for me to tell me
that you will never do it again
And that you will let me do
I'll lift you up from the ground
And to our home will carry you

But how am I going to do to
cure you of the taste of fire?
But how am I going to do to
bring you back toward the blue?

Jacques Bertin - Henri Gougaud - The time to live

Original Title: "Le Temps de vivre"

Text: Henri Gougaud
Year: 1973,1982 (Bertin's version)

Barely do we have the time to live
that we find ourselves ash and frost
Farewell !
And though I'd have so much to do
before the hands of the earth
close my eyes forever

I'd like to make a day of glory
from a woman and a guitar
from a tree and a summer sun
I would like to do a clear dawn
to see to the end of the earth
men who live free
Sitting between two balances
In this world which believes itself free
And which built watchtowers
I would like that noone dies
before having one day, one hour
loved in full sail

Barely do we have the time to live
that we find ourselves ash and frost
Farewell !
And though I'd have so much to do
before the hands of the earth
close my eyes forever

With my two hands color of clay
I'd like to build a city
White to the rooftops and above
It'd be beautiful like a
song of the time of the Commune
filled with an outlawed happiness
And then let Spring come back
I'd like to see Prague and Athen
like a child bursting with laughter
Lorca wandering in Barcelona
While the bee buzzes
In the fresh perfume of the lilacs

Barely do we have the time to live
that we find ourselves ash and frost
Farewell !
And though I'd have so much to do
before the hands of the earth
close my eyes forever

Henri Gougaud's version:

Jacques Bertin - The No-Plea

Original Title: "La Non-Supplique"

Year: 1968

I die with humor, I die modestly
I didn't even put my Sunday clothes on
I am not of those grumpy embittered grandpa's
I dieing without pretention, I'm looking at the Loire
running in front of my house with some naked children,
At the sky with its ultimate swallow in the eye

So goes my life away and my blood which is falling asleep
Remain the big birds that are asleep under the leaves
Remain your long hair and the sun in the water

We live we do not know what, we do not know how
I don't know why, I do not know yet
I reached adulthood one morning by chance
I sold my youth to a fair juggler
I felt all my days pierced by air and birds
My life in me, my blood like a certainty

My life like a tooth eating of death
A big stupid happiness that got its wings caught
Here is the bridge that cracks and the dredge that groans

I've tried but life, I would be slightly annoyed with myself
to kneel to lick its boots
I move away from the water, I go away, everything is fine
I even forget to organise my chrysanthemums

At my wedding as well I was late
andI was caressing your buttocks on the sly
She died before me, that's too bad, that's allright
It's my turn to move aside without speech, without plea
Let the immortals tell us about death

I don't care about death, and marbles, and flowers
I'm still alive and I don't want to talk about it
I hear the pointy steps of women on the platform
I follow them, I want them, it's you and I marry you
It's warm and the Loire stretches and spreads out
I also drove on the left side at the time of the strawberries
Mouth drooling, I go where I fall asleep
I have lived my life full like a writing
and the last sentence isn't written yet
It's very late this evening and I am alone, I dream.

Jacques Bertin - Colline

Colline is a female name but it also means "Hill".
Year: 1977

It was just after the very big heat waves that year
when we were looking for a new housing
In the meanwhile we were at a friend's home who was beautiful
but we weren't making love and undoubtedly it was due to the weather
or it was that we weren't home and you were surprised at this
But I knew that man is a more fragile engineering
than the complicated devices that can be seen in the silent museums
and which are oscillating without a noise and are mysteriously useful

You just were starting to work again and you were struggling
We were just passing at Colline's place who was beautiful
sometimes we caught her naked and we were looking at her
lovingly in her sleep and all three we liked one another
But we weren't making love and maybe out of shyness
because it'd have started up one of those turned off device somewhere.
Although we were loving one another, things are so simple
and those devices that malfunction for the slightest thing are not complicated

I don't know. Oh, I do not know why I'm writing all this
To set up a net accross my life that is taking me away
It was hot in that appartment, we weren't breathing anymore
we were in an elevated interlude of a building in our life
One day, I tell myself, maybe we will finally have an house
I do not understand those people who can settle anywhere
when I look tirelessly with the closed head you know
for the place where I'll find my childhood back

On the head of the island between the two branches
and the years passing I would see them coming
and muddle up with my past, like in the whirlpools of the Loire
the water and then the water lazily will go die in the sands.

Do you believe that one day we will really have a house?
With a good friend and we will be able to have the strength to love each others.
We will love her without fear, remember it, it'll be even more beautiful
and more pure than a couple even like both of us.

It'll be like a meadow in the shadowed part of summer, around the evening
You won't be scared of thunderstorm nor of yourself especially
In the grass those useless devices of the museums would have been arranged
with pendulums, counterweights, copper machineries, bearings

And there would float one of those melodious songs that our parents were singing
Oh tell me, do you think we will be able to make this party, remember it.

Graeme Allwright - At the heart of the tree

Original Title: "Au coeur de l'arbre"

Text: Maurice Cocagnac
Year: 1979

At the heart of the tree, there is the fruit
At the heart of the fruit, there is the seed
At the heart of the seeds, there is life
And the next season

At the heart of man, there is love
At the heart of love, there is sorrow
At the heart of sorrows, there is the day
That morning brings back

At the heart of the tree, there is wood
At the heart of wood, there is the plank
And from two planks, a cross is made
that holds God in its branches

At the heart of shadow, there is the night
At the hearts of nights, it's your absence
If I fall asleep, your light shines
You are in the silence

Pia Colombo - Maurice Fanon - An evening of May

Original Title: "Un soir de mai"
Text: Maurice Fanon
Year: 1964

I remember
An evening of May
Not very long
That I had put
My slippers in yours
And your bed in mine

An evening of May
Already in bed
Done loving
And in your arms
Like a wet blade of grass
I was swinging

Two men
Entered in the bedroom
Two men
The hat askew
Two men
Without knocking, they entered
The boot first
The police and its clerk
Two men
I think they hit you

And on my lips
The last kiss
That you gave me
Without kissing me
Handcuffs around the hands
and the eyes in mine
And in my heart
That smile in tears
That you had
When they took you away
Like a wet flag
that was swaying

Gentlemen
Joined in
Gentlemen
the funny look
Gentlemen
The robe and the rapier
The cross and the benner
The sentence and its clerk
Gentlemen
I think they killed you

If you come back from it
O, I promise you
I will make you
a very beautiful evening of May
My slippers in yours
And your bed in mine

An evening of May
Already in bed
Done loving
And in your arms
Like a wet blade of grass
I was swinging

Edith Piaf - Francis Blanche - The prisoner of the Tower

Original Title: "Le Prisonnier de la Tour"
Text: Francis Blanche
Year: 1949

The prisoner of the Tower killed himself this morning,
Grandmother, we won't go to mass tomorrow
He threw himself from the Tower
While stretching out his hands to me
Grandmother, it seemed to me that I was sad

If the King knew that, Isabelle
Isabelle, if the King knew that
You'd never be allowed to the lace dress again,
Isabelle, if the King knew that

The prisoner of the Tower was my only friend
Grandmother, we won't go to mass today
He was my only love, the reason of my life
Grandmother, and my youth died with him

If the King knew that, Isabelle
Isabelle, if the King knew that
You'd never be allowed to the lace dress again
Isabelle, if the King knew that

The prisoner of the Tower every evening was waiting for me
Grandmother, we will never ever go to mass again
It's a sin that love is
And the world is a pity
Grandmother, my lover I loved has been killed

If the King knew that, Isabelle
Isabelle if the King knew that
You'd never be allowed to the lace dress again
Isabelle, if the King knew that

The prisoner of the Tower won't have a shroud
And nothing, nothing but a black hole where leaves rushes in
But me, I'll go every day, cry under the linden trees
And nothing, not even the King will stop my mourning

If the King knew that, Isabelle
He couldn't do anything else but to cry with you
Because he loved a beauty who wasn't for a King
And the beauty, Isabelle, was me.